ORIGINAL LYRICS: The Vision is the culmination of four years’ work by Liquidlogic designer Shane Benedict. He’s taken velocity rails from surfboard design to give the Vision “insane edge-to-edge looseness and drive.” Designed to gain speed on the rail, this feature also gives the boat extra bite when carving. The Vision was designed to have incredible secondary stability and slicey ends to make for easy cartwheeling in the hole or on flats.
WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE A NUT: The Vision feels extremely loose because it is so easy to keep flat to the wave without accidentally engaging an edge. For the same reason it’s a smooth front and back surfer with bow or stern (whichever is upstream) down and charging for the trough, not bouncing all over the place.
This stable platform allows you time to tweak your position and angle to launch the next move.
The Vision will “butt” bounce but the biggest tricks of the test were from an aggressive carve on the new rails. Some testers thought the Vision was the best carver of the bunch and said it felt like a squirt boat (if anyone but Brad Sutton remembers what that feels like).
The Visions are virtually the same lengths as the Crazy 88s, but they seem to whip around a little quicker in holes and in the air.
WHEN YOU DON’T: Why bother changing something if it’s not broken? Look to find the same simple and effective outfitting as last year. Tall paddlers who couldn’t get inside last year’s Big Wheel will be tickled pink (and might try requesting a boat in that colour) now that Liquidlogic seems to have worked out the sizing for the Visions. Still, tall paddlers don’t get the advantage of the bean- bag bulkhead that the rest are realiz- ing is a pretty cushy innovation. When playing around in little holes and on the flats, the Vision is the smoothest end-to-end since the Skip and Pop (short the six inches of extra plastic).
PROS: Short. Light. Ergo outfitting. Stable wave rides.
CONS: Pokey down the river.
SPECS (44/56): length 6’1”/6’3” | width 24.25”/25.25” | volume 44/56 US gal weight 28/30 lbs | cockpit 18.75”x33.5” | weight range 110–170 lbs/150–210 lbs | price $1399 Cdn/ $1099 US
This article first appeared in the Summer 2005 issue of Rapid Magazine. For more great boat reviews, subscribe to Rapid’s print and digital editions here.
